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Thursday, July 30, 2015

2015 Food and Toiletries Spending.....July Update

Onward to July's food spending report.......

Here are my FOOD BUDGET spending totals for JULY 2015.

I have posted July's totals on the Total Grocery Savings for 2015 Page located HERE and have updated the Yearly Totals there. I am listing subtotals for each store I purchased from in June. If you aren't interested in that much detail, just skip to the bottom for the Totals Sum. My spending includes Food, Toiletries/HBA, Cleaning Products, Paper Goods & tax where applicable. We are a family of 3(3-4 at home this month). No kids under 19.
Remember too that youngest son's friend often stays over at our house during the school break and eats here sometimes so I am feeding an additional person sporadically.

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My best 3 Store Savings Totals were Target at 100%, the Bakery Outlet at 78.71% and Dollar Tree at 58.20%. My WORST savings rate(besides the local market were I just bought a gallon of milk and milk is NEVER on sale in PA so it was 0% savings there)was Maine Source at 34.32%.

I shopped at 9 different stores this past month. Lots of single transactions at lots of stores. The only store I shopped at repeatedly was Weis.

TOTAL Out of Pocket........ $451.90

TOTAL Coupons & Store Sales Savings...$432.08

TOTAL Value of Items Purchased............$883.98

TOTAL Savings of...................................48.88%

This closes out the July food/toiletries spending.

THOUGHTS & COMMENTS for this month.....
I went into July wanting to do a $300 food budget for the month....after June's spending topped out at $602.03 it was time to reign things in. 8-(
Well if I hadn't bought those Rite-Aid gift cards(to use later in the year to get awesome deals) I could have done a $350.90 spending month and that would have been closer to my target.

The monthly savings percentage went down by 6.72 % in July to 48.88% compared to June's 55.60% average. If I hadn't purchased the R-A gift cards my monthly savings percentage would have been 53.11% which would have been a 2.49% reduction in savings.

The savings rate for the whole year so far now stands at 58.12%. That's a 1.4 % decrease in savings over June's YTD total(59.52%). It's still hanging in well over a 40% savings rate for the year so it's all good.

I have spent a total of $2,803.56 on food/toiletries in 2015 so far at this point in the year. That averages out to $400.51 per month so just over $400 average per month. Not a bad thing but I can do better.

June's Grocery Spend Fest raised the average monthly spending by $42.10 more per month for the year-to-date.
And May's spending raised the average monthly spending by $41.47.
With July's average monthly spending at $400.51 we are finally heading in the right direction!

With College Boy going back to school next month(and no more coffee, snacks, chicken strips, soda, etc. being bought) I should be able to get this food spending even lower.

If you take my halfway through 2015 total and extrapolate it out for the full year, we are on track to achieve a $4,703.32 Food/Toiletries Spending Year for 2015.

LOOKING AHEAD To AUGUST.........

We'll try for a $350 food budget for AUGUST. I am done buying special snacks and foods for College Boy for the Summer and he goes back to school on the 15th of August. Granted I'll have a few items to pick up for him to take to school as he goes back a week before classes start for Marching Band Camp and he'll need food for that week plus snacks and bottled water for the Fall semester. I've picked up over the course of this Summer some provisions for him to take back to school already, working those expenses into my monthly food shopping budget(drinks, coffee, canned pasta, ramen cups, cereal, etc.)so we shouldn't have to spend much this month, if anything thing, on foods/toiletries for him.

We do need to eat down some proteins in the freezer including a turkey breast this August. Just getting that out will make quite a bit of room in there for late Summer produce buys coming up I wish to freeze.

If you have other ideas or guidelines you follow please leave a comment and share yours with us all.

* How much did you spend on food/toiletries in July?
* Do you track your yearly food spending?
* What was your savings percentage buying on sale and/or with coupons vs. buying at regular retail price last month, if you track that sort of thing?

5 comments:

We spent $630 on groceries this month. The majority of the overage came from hosting my family/a good sized gathering for the 4th of July. Given that I attend multiple family events/year & contribute nothing since I'm traveling, feels like the right tradeoff. :-) Time to get back on the wagon of meal planning & inventory management!

We're averaging between $450 and $500 a month on groceries. I have to admit, I think I am buying way too much food because we just aren't eating it anymore. We've turned into snackers. Also, because of my return of acid reflex lately, I've stopped eating around 6PM which has been working out well for me. My acid reflex is gone and I'm losing weight. Perhaps, because of the heat, DH and I have only been eating sandwiches for breakfast & lunch. Dinner is a quick something on the grill and that's it! Done. Dessert is a frozen fruit bar or a small ice cream cone.I'm think next month we are going to do pantry eating and start whittling down our stock.

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Welcome to my blog! I'm just an older mom, simple gal living my life as best I can. I enjoy saving money, talking frugality, couponing, compacting, personal finance, genealogy, about the South, art, theater and sewing, interspersed with my humorous take on the world and my daily adventures.
You can email me directly at arcure(at)ptdprolog(dot)net.